Missiles that cloak in midflight.

@guy, on Mar 31 2006, 12:21 PM, said in Missiles that cloak in midflight.:

Um, where would you like to be able to define the amount? You only get one modval and this is used to define which outfit you want to affect.

That's for the engine programmer to worry about.

You could still use the IncreaseMax for this, I think.

Say you have Missile 'A,' a massless outfit with a maximum of 5.

Add an outfit called "Ton(s) of Missile 'A' storage space." This second outfit takes one ton of equipment space, and multiplies the maximum for the ammunition. The launcher would also IncreaseMax.

Nova will sum all the outfits that IncreaseMax for Missile 'A,' and multiply the maximum by that sum, e.g.:

If you have just the launcher, it multiplies the max by 1, so 5 missiles max.
If you have the launcher and a ton of storage space, multiply by 2, so 10 missiles.

The method would require one outfit for each type of ammo you want to control in this way.

Or, am I misreading the topic? It's late here.

@desprez, on Mar 31 2006, 01:04 AM, said in Missiles that cloak in midflight.:

Ah, I see what you're saying. That's not what's happening
<detailed explanation of the swapping fighters trick removed>

Yes, after scanning through that thread I'd decided that I wasn't remembering your swapping fighters set-up. However, I am pretty sure I've seen someone's demo that did pretty much what I described. The DatePostIncing mission on landing was to fire off the cröns properly, but it would definitely work better if it was fired in the outfitters.
Anyway, I agree that for most purposes, either free mass or normal Increase Max outfits would work perfectly well.

@eugene-chin, on Mar 31 2006, 07:15 PM, said in Missiles that cloak in midflight.:

Or, am I misreading the topic? It's late here.

Yes, I'm afraid you're misreading the topic. Your method will work very nicely for a single missile type, but I don't see how it could be used to place a cap on the total number of missiles you can have, regardless of type (i.e. you have a max of 30: 15 of Type A and 15 of Type B; 10 of Type A and 20 of Type B; 25 of Type A and 5 of Type B; etc.).

Edwards

@lord-rama, on Mar 30 2006, 09:08 PM, said in Missiles that cloak in midflight.:

Since the missiles are weak and puny, large capital ships would have an interesting variant which fires several of the missiles at a time, without the need for extra turrets.

You could use my missile volleys idea.

Reload of 3, bursts of 10, burst reload of 100.

That is actually a good idea to use for an anti-fighter missile turret. The turret fires volleys of small, fast missiles with weak payloads, perfect for taking out fighters. (Fighters in the TC would be very fast, fast enough to outrun almost anything. It would be very difficult to take one out in a slow ship unless you're a really good pilot.)

@desprez, on Mar 29 2006, 04:22 AM, said in Missiles that cloak in midflight.:

Oh, Im sure it'll work.

I think, however, I'd rather see a missile that can only remain cloaked for so long, then it decloaks, as it runs low on power. Makes the missile less powerful at longer ranges.

Also make like 5 wëaps so that it slows down in flight before stopping, and recursivly submunitioning into itself, so it just sits there. I think that trick was discussed here earlier.

I like the idea. Pretty simple coding and idea, but I didn't come up with the idea, so I guess you will

@derakon, on Mar 29 2006, 04:13 PM, said in Missiles that cloak in midflight.:

The "not frustrate the player" bit is important. Remember, the computer-played ships don't really do anything about missiles unless they have point-defense systems. The player, however, typically has to do a great deal of missile evading, unless they're in a particularly beefy ship. Normally it's possible to dodge missiles by a) being faster, being more maneuverable, or c) having sufficient jamming. Case C still applies, but B doesn't and A does only in a limited sense. That is, if you know that the missiles have been fired, you can try jetting out of the combat arena as fast as you can, or you can hope your jamming works, but you can't effectively dodge. And if your efforts are insufficient, then you just find yourself taking random damage.

I'm all for limiting the player's time to react, because that doesn't leave the player helpless. But leaving the missiles cloaked just seems Not Fun to me. With that in mind, I'd suggest putting a proximity sensor on the missiles that causes them to submunition one more time as they get close to the player, as the missile decloaks (say, to divert power from the cloaking device to an EMP generator).

The other option for "cloaking", of course, is to just make the missiles very dark, but still slightly visible. Clavius for EVC did this with a couple of fightercraft; it worked out fairly well.

Edit: stupid emoticons messing with my lists...

If the missle, when visible is dodgable in a certain ship. Then I could dodge the invisible version. How? I have been in extremely long and tiresome battles in the EV universe (4-6 hours no stopping), and I learned how to dodge very effectively.
Due to my fighting technique in EV; I have basically all my enemies in a relative cluster. And I have learned to examine how the fighters and the heavier ships cluster together. So I move in very predictable patterns which will cause my enemies to align so that I have control over the battlefield.
In terms of incoming missles, they don't swirve behind a person in EV, EVO, or EVN. They go in the shortest possible path to hit the player. Therefore, I know where the cluster of ships is and I am in continous movement, therefore, whether the missles were invisible or visible, they still wouldn't be able to hit me.
If the missles were smart they would deviate somewhat from a direct path from the enemy to me so that I would truely not have a clue as to where the missle will come from to hit me. Or if the missle's could realize my pattern of flight, and plot an appropriate course of interception, then it would be good.

At this point, cloaking the missles wouldn't really make the game any harder for the real pro's of flight in the EV universe. It would however, greatly effect the newbies and other people who haven't etched in stone a pattern to evade the missle attack.

@trinix, on Apr 13 2006, 04:36 AM, said in Missiles that cloak in midflight.:

In terms of incoming missles, they don't swirve behind a person in EV, EVO, or EVN. They go in the shortest possible path to hit the player.

Are you talking about guided or unguided projectiles?

Homing missiles in EVN do not fly in an intercept or lead persuit course. They simply aim at where the target is at any given moment. This is called a pure persuit course. Aspect angle and angle-off are the same. This also happens to be the current shortest distance at any given moment, but frequently will not end up actually having been the shortest route to intercept.

Unguided missiles/projectiles, particularly turreted versions, attempt to lead the target and intercept it where it will be. This is called lead persuit. However, the EV intercept computation is not perfect, and will somtimes result in a missile firing in a less than optimal direction, especialy when the firing platform is moving. The lead persuit effect was easiest to see in EVO with regards to the Vonian ships and their turreted rocket launcher. The Vonian ships were slow, and so the firing platform didn't move that much. The rockets were slow too, and so they had to fire at a rather large intercept angle. Sometimes, it was pretty amazing to watch.

If the target is moving directly towards or away from the launcher, lead and pure persuit angles are identical. However, if the target is moving lateraly, and if the target doesn't change direction, the lead persuit path is also the shortest path over time. Whereas the pure persuit course will end up being a longer route, and frequently end up 'swerving in behind' the target. And this is how all homing missiles fly in all versions of EV.

This post has been edited by Desprez : 13 April 2006 - 02:52 AM

This behaviour is very fun to exploit in Polycon, as flying in circles is rather... easy.

Quote

At this point, cloaking the missles wouldn't really make the game any harder for the real pro's of flight in the EV universe

A little pompous, are we? While you could dodge cloaked missles, it would be harder, adding a twist to gameplay. You don't want anything to be impossible, just differant. If you couldn't dodge them, that would be bad.

This post has been edited by Phantom_Phist : 16 April 2006 - 07:23 PM